Sara K. Inati

Dr. Sara K. Inati serves as Assistant Clinical Investigator and Head of the Neurophysiology of Epilepsy Unit within the Surgical Neurology Branch at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), specifically the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). She additionally directs the Epilepsy Fellowship Program and co-directs the Clinical Neurophysiology Fellowship Program, providing critical training infrastructure for neurology specialists.

Her academic foundation includes:

• Undergraduate studies at Harvard College
• M.D. with honors from Dartmouth Medical School (2003)
• Medical internship at Lenox Hill Hospital
• Neurology residency at Columbia University Medical Center's Neurological Institute
• Epilepsy/clinical neurophysiology fellowship at Columbia Comprehensive Epilepsy Center

Dr. Inati's research pioneers advanced methodologies for medically refractory focal epilepsy through integrated neurophysiologic and neuroimaging approaches. Her team develops techniques to localize epileptic foci and map seizure networks using intracranial EEG and advanced MRI, directly enhancing presurgical evaluation protocols. This work bridges clinical neurophysiology, surgical neurology, and computational neuroscience to improve surgical outcomes for complex epilepsy cases.

Analysis of her 2021-2024 publications reveals consistent innovation in characterizing interictal discharges as travelling waves, leveraging arterial spin labeling for temporal lobe lateralization, and creating normative models for cortical dysplasia detection. These studies demonstrate growing sophistication in multimodal data integration and computational analysis of seizure dynamics.

No scientific awards or major prizes are documented in the source material.

Dr. Inati leads an active research unit comprising a Research Scientist, visiting Postdoctoral Fellow, and three Postbac IRTA trainees. Her lab maintains strong collaborative ties with the Surgical Neurology Branch and supports epilepsy research across NIH institutes through clinical neurophysiology services including extended EEG monitoring and intraoperative testing.